by David Drake
Garric stepped forward, his sword rising. The barrier of light made his skin tremble as he crossed it. Someone walking on my grave, he thought. He brought his blade down in a vertical cut that sheared through the Hand.
Something screamed. Perhaps it was the whirlwind that snatched Garric and whirled him into flaming darkness.
Light blazed. He saw Tenoctris and Liane; and then only the darkness, as deep as the ghost woman's blank hellpit eyes.
Sharina still held Halphemos' hand, but the young wizard was beginning to find the pace by himself. For the first several blocks after they left the prison, Halphemos had tripped himself every few steps. It was only Sharina's support that had kept him from falling. She couldn't imagine what it really was that a wizard did, but she'd seen the cost often enough to know that wizardry was work as brutal as scything in the hot sun.
“Where are we going?” Halphemos gasped, the first connected words he'd managed since he'd shouted out the final syllables of his incantation.
“There's a ship about to leave for Erdin,” Sharina said, trying not to speak so loudly that passersby heard her. “Cerix is waiting aboard for us.”
Cerix had written only a spell to loosen locks and bars on the palimpsest. The phantasm Halphemos sent out before him was of his own creation. Sharina supposed it was an illusion he'd practiced before, but it proved that the younger wizard had a stock of his own wizardry safe in memory.
Pandah's waterfront was just as busy and varied as what Sharina had seen in Erdin, the capital and port of entry for one of the most powerful islands of the kingdom. Serian ships with square bows and slatted sails were berthed end to end with catamarans from Dalopo, bulbous grain haulers from Ornifal, and small craft carrying wine or citrus fruit or metalwork from a dozen islands, some too small to have names to any but their own citizens.
A few months before Sharina had thought she'd never leave Barca's Hamlet. The variety she saw here seemed exciting and wonderful. While she imagined the wonders these ships implied, she could put aside for a time the darker mysteries of what had happened to her friends.
In contrast to the flimsy houses of mud brick and wicker which comprised most of the city, Pandah's quays were built of stone. A parrot squabbled with a seagull on the yard of a lateen-rigged coaster, and the chickens whose coop was being carried aboard a nearby vessel clucked a nervous counterpoint to the terns above.
A twenty-oared galley lay at wharfside of the nearest pier. Sharina knew enough of economics to be surprised to see such a vessel here.
Galleys were either military vessels or yachts for wealthy travelers who were willing to pay for the assurance of not spending weeks waiting for a favorable wind. They had very little carrying capacity and the crew was several times that of a sailing vessel. This one had neither military accoutrements nor the trappings of luxury to be expected in a yacht.
The Porpoise, the Sandrakkan freighter on which Cerix had taken passage, was berthed at the next pier. Sharina could hear the crew calling a chantey as they walked the capstan, raising the yard and sail which had rested on deck while the ship was in harbor.
A man stepped from behind a stack of timber, offloaded from an Ornifal vessel but not yet carried to its next destination. The sun was behind him, throwing his squat form into silhouette. He was blocking Sharina's path.
Halphemos continued a step beyond Sharina; he hadn't noticed the figure until she stopped. She drew the Pewle knife.
“Are you going to use that on me, child?” the figure asked in a familiar voice.
“Nonnus,” Sharina said. She began to tremble. She couldn't find the slot to resheath the heavy blade. “Nonnus?”
“Who are you?” Halphemos demanded on a rising note. Sharina suddenly realized how young he was. Halphemos was smart and able and a few years older than Sharina in simple chronology, but there was a good deal of boy still in his personality.
Nonnus had been mature. Nonnus had made decisions instantly but without haste. Nonnus had always been in perfect control of himself until the moment he died.
“Nonnus, you're dead,” Sharina said as though she were whispering a prayer.
“Sharina?” Halphemos said, looking from her to the man who was a stranger to him. “What...?”
“I was sent because I was the only messenger you would trust, child,” Nonnus said. “We need to go immediately. More than the world depends on it.”
Sharina moved closer so that she could be sure of the features even in the red light of sunset. The face and voice were beyond question those of the man who had died to protect her in a room full of hellspawn and slaughter.
“Cashel has disappeared,” she said. “We were going to find him, and then f-find the others.”
The crew of the Porpoise had belayed the falls to hold the sail in position. The captain shouted for the mooring lines to be taken in.
“Cashel will be all right,” Nonnus said. “Your friend—”
He glanced calmly toward the quivering Halphemos.
“—can find Cashel without your help. And even if he couldn't, this is more important. I've got a ship here. We have to leave at once.”
“I—” Sharina said.
Nonnus put a hand on her elbow. “You do trust me, don't you, child?” he said. He nodded to the galley. The oarsmen were at their benches and only the stern line was still around the mooring bitt on the quay. “We have to go.”
Sharina turned to Halphemos. “I have to go,” she said. “When you get to Erdin, find Ilna os-Kenset. She's Cashel's sister. She can help you.”
“But—” Halphemos said.
Over her shoulder as she strode to the galley with Nonnus, Sharina cried, “You don't understand. Just go!”
The 12th of Heron (Later)
Cashel marveled to watch Zahag climb the tower with the coil of rope over his shoulder. From a distance Cashel had thought the structure was made from blocks of pink stone, but when he stood at the base he'd seen it was all one piece like a glazed pot. The ape went up it like a tree frog on the side of a barn.
“It's a fool thing to do,” Zahag muttered, adding emphasis whenever his hand or foot gained a new hold. “When we get inside this Ilmed will blast us...”
His limbs were spread to their fullest extent. The ape's arms in particular spanned a considerable portion of the tower's circumference, though not enough that the hands were squeezing directly against one another.
“Or else we'll just burn...” Zahag said. Only one limb moved at a time, feeling its way upward for a new grip on what seemed to Cashel to be a smooth surface. The finish was weathered, the way even hard rock loses its polish if exposed to the elements, but that slight roughness was a long way short of anything a human could've hung on to. “In the fire going back!”
As Zahag spoke the last word, his hand reached over the top of the tower and snatched him out of sight. The swift, unexpected motion was like the flash of a frog's tongue, bringing back a victim to swallow before a man watching sees the mouth open.
“Ho!” Cashel cried in delight. The rope spun down the tower's side to him, uncoiling as it fell. He knotted the end around his staff, two half hitches on one side of the balance, leaving a long end which he tied off in another pair of half hitches to stabilize the pole.
“Well come on!” the ape demanded, peering over the tower's coaming with an expression Cashel couldn't read. In a human the snarl would have meant fury, but it seemed more likely that Zahag was grinning with delight. “Do I have to pull you up myself? Or shall we just get out of here now before the wizard comes back?”
“I'm coming,” Cashel said. He gave the rope a firm, even pull while he didn't have fifty feet to plunge onto rocks. He thought of asking Zahag if he was sure the end was tied to something that would take the weight, but the ape was worse than a child. He might throw a tantrum if Cashel questioned his ability.
Palace servants had tried to give Cashel gloves along with the rope he requested. He couldn't understand why until he looked at
their white, delicate palms and imagined what those hands would look like after hauling Cashel's weight to the top of the tower. A shepherd in Barca's Hamlet had calluses tougher than the calfskin gloves the servants offered.
When the line didn't cascade down at his first tug, Cashel braced one foot high up on the wall and used the full strength of his torso. The rope itself had a little stretch, but the loop at the other end was around something sturdy enough to stay planted. Cashel supported his weight with his grip on the rope as his feet walked up the sheer side of the tower.
The surrounding flames were a transparent curtain, but they seemed to block all sound from beyond them. People onshore cheered silently, waving hands and garments. Cashel wasn't used to that. In the borough folks didn't stare at other people any more than they stared at the clouds—though everybody knew what everybody else was doing and what the weather tomorrow would be. Erdin was a big city where nobody seemed very interested in anybody else, especially not bumpkins from a backward island like Haft.
But here on Pandah, this Pandah anyway, Cashel was the wizard who was going to save Princess Aria. He wondered if there was a soul in the city who wasn't watching him right now. He didn't much like the feeling.
When Cashel was six feet from the top of the tower, Zahag poked his head over the coaming. “Well, there you are!” the ape said peevishly. “I thought you'd gone back and left me!”
Cashel wasn't sure whether the ape was being sarcastic or if he'd really been worried. Cashel was used to people complaining that he was slow. It was all right if an ape took up the same song.
Nothing anybody said was going to make Cashel hurry, of course. He got jobs done in the time it took him. It was that simple, and he guessed Zahag would figure that out sooner or later. Folks in the borough had.
Cashel put a hand on the coping while the other kept its grip on the rope. He lifted his torso, then hooked his right foot over the edge and pulled himself completely onto the tower. He didn't suppose it looked graceful, but Cashel didn't care about that either.
The coping was ankle high—enough to trip somebody and trap rainwater, but not to do any good. The drain holes would let the water out—unless it froze, which it probably didn't very often on Pandah. It was still a stupid design. The little curlicues scalloping the edge of the pink material increased Cashel's scorn for the fellow who'd built the place.
Well, that wasn't a change from how he'd felt about Ilmed before.
In the middle of the roof was a tall post with glittering lenses all around the top. Zahag had looped the rope around it. Near the post was a trapdoor with two leaves, smooth and pink like the walls, lying open.
“What's inside?” Cashel asked as he drew the quarterstaff up to him. He wasn't sure how effective a weapon the fir pole would be, but he'd rather have it than nothing in his hand if trouble started.
“How would I know?” Zahag fumed. “You're the one who wanted to come up here! I wasn't going to go into a trap like that alone.”
Cashel walked to the open door and looked down. Helical stairs curled several flights below the floor immediately beneath, which seemed to be a dainty bedroom. The staircase was of pink filigree so delicate that Cashel thought for a moment of asking the ape to try it with his lesser weight first.
That would've been a waste of breath. Cashel put his weight on the top step, holding his staff crosswise. If the staircase went to pieces like ice shattering in the spring sunlight, the staff would support Cashel until he got his feet back on the roof and figured out what to do next.
The stairs didn't so much as tremble. The treads of Reise's inn, oak an inch thick, had more give in them than this tracery. Cashel rotated his staff upright and continued down.
The whole floor was a single circular room with a bed on one side and a series of fitted chests around the walls. What wasn't pink was white. The only other times Cashel had seen this much pink in one place were in occasional sunsets, and there the shade was mixed with more robust colors.
A minor set between poles so it could tilt stood between a pair of chests. Cashel stared at himself. He'd never really seen himself before, not this way: the surface was more perfect than any pool or round of polished metal in the borough. If it weren't for the staff in his hand and the sight of Zahag climbing cautiously down the staircase behind him, Cashel would have taken the reflection as a real person: a big youth in a tunic more delicate than any part of the form it clothed.
The folding screen on the wall opposite the mirror was embroidered with roses and long-tailed birds of a sort Cashel had never seen in life. He walked over to it while Zahag watched from midway down the staircase.
Cashel jerked the screen aside, half-expecting a threat or a horror behind it. Instead he saw what looked for an instant like another mirror—but this one showed the landscape around the tower, from horizon to horizon.
The ape hopped down to get a better look. “See, there's the palace!” he said. “And the ship there in the harbor, it's moving!”
“Is it magic?” Cashel said, squinting to pick out the details in the image. He could see the folk on the harbor-side. Their lips moved as they spoke, if he brought his eyes very close to the image.
“No, no,” Zahag said dismissiyely. “It's just light reflecting through a series of mirrors. The head is in the pole on the roof. Didn't you see it?”
“I didn't know what it meant,” Cashel said simply. He walked to the staircase. They were here to rescue the Princess Aria, after all, not to watch people having a holiday on the harborside.
Cashel still didn't see how light could reflect through a solid roof—or, for that matter, how light reflecting through a solid roof was any different from wizardry. He was used to people getting angry because he didn't understand things, though, so when their voices took on that frustrated tone he didn't press them unless it was something he really needed to know.
Zahag usually sounded frustrated and angry when he tried to explain things to Cashel. That didn't make the ape any different from a lot of people.
Cashel went down the stairs to the next level. Zahag followed, munching an apple from the crystal bowl on the bedside table. The ape was a messy eater; seeds and fragments of crisp pulp spattered the back of Cashel's neck.
This room was a library. The walls were fitted with pigeonholes for scrolls lying end-out and cases in which codices stood. A pink rolling staircase would let a petite girl reach the highest shelves.
No one was on this level either.
Neither this room nor the one above it had windows. In the ceiling were bright panels across which Cashel could see clouds drifting. It looked like the panels were open to the sky—no glass could possibly be so clear—but Cashel knew that there was a thick rug over the floor directly above them. More wizardry, he supposed.
Tags dangled from the scrolls' winding sticks; the spines of the codices bore titles in gold leaf. A little wistfully, Cashel asked, “Can you read, Zahag?”
“Sure,” the ape said. He tossed the remainder of the apple onto the white angora rug and pulled a codex off its shelf. “It's a waste of time, though.”
Zahag flopped the book open, holding it from the top with his long, remarkably jointed arm. “ 'Pasia os-Melte of Erdin was brought up as an orphan after her mother died in childbirth,' ” he read. “ 'Although Pasia was poor, she learned modesty and self-control. She regularly had a dream which prophesied good fortune for her, hinting at her future destiny.' ”
Zahag tossed the book across the room. “What use is that sort of thing?” he asked. “Does it feed you?”
“Some people like it,” Cashel said.
The ape scratched his armpit. “I tried to eat a book once,” he said musingly. “It tasted like dried leaves. This one might be better in a pinch—it's animal hide, parchment. But not much.”
He looked around the room. “Any more fruit down here?” he asked.
“I don't think so,” Cashel said.
Only a few people in the borough could rea
d and write. It wasn't a skill you needed to tend crops or herd sheep. Reise or-Laver, Garric's father, was an educated man, though. He'd taught his son and daughter to read the poets and historians who wrote a thousand years before, during the Old Kingdom.
Many times Garric had sat under the holly oak on a hillside south of the hamlet and read to Cashel. There'd been tales of battles and fantastic adventures as well as love songs written to girls who were dust and the dust of dust forty generations ago. Girls who might never have existed except in the poet's mind, Garric said.
Cashel was out in the greater world, now. He'd seen wonders as marvelous as anything in the books Garric read to him. And there'd been battles, too... Cashel's grip tightened unconsciously on the quarterstaff.
But there was another world that only readers could enter. Garric and Sharina had shown Cashel a glimpse of that world, but he knew in his heart that he'd never be part of it himself.
Well, you couldn't do everything. “Have you ever herded sheep, Zahag?” Cashel asked as he walked toward the staircase again.
“What?” the ape said. “Why would I want to do that?”
“I don't suppose you would,” Cashel said.
Because he was taking a last look at the shelves of books, Cashel didn't see the auburn-headed girl coming up the staircase until she said, “Who are—”
Cashel glanced at her in surprise. The girl screamed and ran back down the stairs.
“Help!” she cried. She wore a garment made from many thicknesses of white gauze; it drifted about her like a cloud. Each layer was so thin it seemed transparent, but together they were as opaque as a velvet robe. “Save me from the monsters! Help!”
“Princess Aria!” Cashel said. He clumped after her, putting a foot on each tread instead of jumping down because he was in a hurry. The twisting staircase wasn't built for someone Cashel's size; and anyway, he'd learned long since that his weight and strength meant he had to be careful when he did anything. There were plenty of people who thought Cashel was stupid, but nobody said he was a fool.